LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



PRESENTED bV 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



^l)t College of t\}t Citti of jNcoj ^ork. - 



A D D E E S S 



OF THE 




ssociATE Alumni 




TO THE 



BOARD OF TRUSTP]ES. 



-»-#-^ 



V 

Mexv fart: 

EVENING POST STEAM PRESSES, 41 NASSAU STREET, COR. LIBERTY. 



0' 



v 



V 









Richard L. Larremore, Esq., 

President of the Board of Trustees. 

Sir: 

At the annual meeting of the Associate Alumni of the College of the 
City of ISTew York, held at the college building, on the 2d of July, 1869, 
the following address to the Board of Trustees was unanimoush" adopted, and 
a copy ordered to be transmitted. 

Very respectfully, 



New York, September 1st, 1869. 



CHARLES ROBERTS, Jr., 

Secretary. 



To the Board of Trustees 

Of the College of the City of New Yorh. 

During tlie past six months the college of which 
you were recently appointed trustees has been assailed in the 
press and elsewhere. An attempt has been made to prejudice 
against it the people of this city and the legislature of the state. 
These attacks need not cause alarm ; they do not portend imme- 
diate danger. Public institutions are often the targets of un- 
friendly criticism ; but legislatures and great cities haye ever been 
slow to abolish colleges, or even to check their natural development. 
Our college was created to satisfy a public want, its establishment 
being asked for by the Board of Education and authorized by four 
fifths of the voters of this city. In the twenty years of its ex- 
istence it has done good work ; the Eegents of the University and 
several legislative committees have borne testimony to its excel- 
lence, which, moreover, is admitted by all who have more than 
a speculative knowledge of education. For these reasons, and 
because we know how easy it is for ever so small a number of 
opponents to raise a clamor against any, even the best, institution, 
and how little indicative such clamor is of the feeling of the 
community, we have hitherto refrained from public argument. 
Lest, however, continued silence on the part of its alumni should 
be interpreted as a partial admission of the charges made against 
our college, we beg now, at our annual meeting, to address you, 
and, through you, the people of this city, in its defence. 

The abolishment of the college has been demanded on the score 
of economy. How much does it cost to maintain it ? Last year 
^120,000 was appropriated for the support of the college; the total 
tax levy was in excess of twenty -four millions of dollars. In other 
words, somewhat less than the two-hundredth part of the city 
budget was devoted to the higher education furnished by the city 
college. 



There are persons who do not object to the expenditure in itself, 
but call it wasteful in relation to the results obtained. . A writer 
in one of the journals of this city has stated, (and, after correction, 
has reiterated,) that this higher education costs several thousand 
dollars for each graduate, representing the whole work of the 
college as consisting in the production of graduates. Truly 
a strange yiew ! Is education a thing of such nature, that only 
that amount which is given in a full college course is valuable, 
and all lesser amounts are worth nothing ? Are the six hundred 
young men who, from year to year, receive a partial education at 
the college to be wholly ignored? Are the habits of mind, the 
knowledge and the culture which they acquire in various periods 
shorter than that of the full course wholly unprofitable to them 
and to the community ? Not in their own estimation ; as, from 
personal acquaintance with them, the members of this association 
can testify. 'No ! the work done for and through these young 
men who attend the college for limited periods constitutes, 
perhaps, its chief usefulness. Through them it most effectually 
leavens the whole community witli an intelligent re2:ard for learn- 
ing and an intelligent sympathy with the higher aims and labors 
of civilization. •. 

The young men who have natural ability and perseverance 
sufficient to complete a college education are few in any com- 
munity; and of these, many are prevented by want of money. In 
the college of this city the burden is made as light as possible : not 
only is tuition free, but the books are furnished to the student, 
and there is absolutely no charge under any name whatever. In 
addition, our association has established an Aid Fund, from w^hich 
we have assisted a number of young men who could not other- 
wise have continued at college. This assisttmce is given not as 
charity, but in the shape of loans; much of the money loaned has 
been returned, and used over again. Every winter several 
students of the higher classes find remunerative employment in 
the evening schools under your charge. If, in spite of all these 
facilities, large numbers leave before reaching the highest class, it 
is, because, with each advance in their studies, their ability and 
perseverance are put to a severer test ; because, in this great and 
chiefly commercial city, the allurements of business often prove 
more powerful than the charms of study; because, with increasing 
age, the American eagerness to be self-supporting grows stronger; 



and because, with each year, it becomes, indeed, more and more 
difficult for parents in moderate circumstances to maintain their 
sons at college, though food, lodging and clothing be all that they 
are called upon to provide. And yet it would be a great mistake 
to suppose that most of those who do graduate at our college are 
the sons of wealthy parents ; nothing could be further from the 
truth. 'Nol a large majority of our body were not reared in 
affluence, and are not, actually or prospectiyely, inheritors of 
ancestral wealth ; many of us could not have gone to college, if the 
education and books had not been free ; many would not have 
gone but for being naturally promoted to this college from the 
public schools; and many could not have been made to go as charity 
scholars to institutions where others pay. The diminution of the 
number of scholars in the successiye classes of the college is the 
exact counterpart of the progressiye diminution in our schools, 
from the primary grade, where the pupils are numbered by thou- 
sands, to the highest classes in the grammar schools, where they 
are counted by dozens or scores. Yet the value of our schools is 
never measured by the number of scholars in their upper classes. 
This question, like many others, may be viewed from opposite 
points. While we deplore the diminution in the number of 
students, we must, at the same time, rejoice that so many more 
young men than eventually graduate are yet enabled to enjoy the 
benefits of a college for a season. To the ordinary colleges of the 
country very few young men repair who do not intend to 
graduate ; to ours, hundreds come to stay as long as they can. 

Again there are persons who, though they neither object to the 
appropriation of money to higher education, nor commit the 
singular mistake of ignoring in their calculations all students who 
do not become bachelors of arts, or of sciences, entertain the 
opinion that -the 1120,000 spent upon the college is so much taken 
from the primary schools, where it is more needed. A sufficient 
reply to this objection is, that the money required for the support 
of the college is raised separately, so that the general school fund 
would not be increased by even one dollar, if the college were not 
in existence. But were the fact otherwise, were the money for 
the college taken from the school fund, it would still be well 
applied. Well did the Board of Education say, in their report for 
the year 1853, when speaking of the college (then known as the 
Free Academy) : 



8 

" If the Free Academy were limited in its benefits to those who 
enter within its walls and submit to its direct influence, it should 
long ago have disarmed the few who look with disfavor upon it, 
and, from time to time, suggest that it is too expensive. But this, 
its direct instruction, is the least part of the benefits it confers 
upon us. If it had no pupils to be taught within its narrow pre- 
cincts — if it were but a mere dumb show — and yet conferred upon 
the city the indirect benefits which now flow from it, it would be 
worth three-fold its cost. In no manner so well as through this 
institution could the same money be devoted to the profit of the 
hundred and twenty thousand children now registered in our com- 
mon schools, and soon to be swelled to a quarter of a million. 
How else could we get that fresh and cheerful ambition which now 
characterizes teachers and pupils; that high tone of public educa- 
tion to which we are daily approaching, and which we must soon 
reach ; and, most of all, that universal affection for our school sys- 
tem so adapted to all, so economical and useful to all, as well 
those who pay taxes directly, as those who, destitute of property, 
still in numberless indirect exactions, bear at least their share of 
the burdens of citizenship ; and that pride in it which pervades 
every class of people, and hedges it round with an impregnable 
defence ?" 

It is a well known fact that the college has induced, and does 
still induce, many wealthy citizens to sen^ their sons to the public 
schools. We cannot suppose the less affluent and the poor people 
of the city so blindly fierce in their opposition to aristocracy as 
not to recognize the refinement and power naturally connected 
with the home-culture of the children of the wealthy, and to be 
unwilling to have their own children associate, and on a footing of 
equal rights, with those more favored of fortune. 

It is to be feared that the abolishment of the college would 
react most unfortunately upon our public schools. It would tend 
to reduce them to what they were in the early part of the century, 
and what, essentially, they continued to be until the establishment 
of the Board of Education, and the almost simultaneous establish- 
ment of the Free Academy — it would tend to make our common 
schools charity schools. But laudable as the maintenance of 
charity schools is in default of something better, the free school 
system of this country is, certainly, neither understood nor meant 
to be a charity system. 

The interdependence of schools of all grades, from the primary 
school to the university, is a fundamental principle of educational 



science; it is as impossible to have good schools without good 
colleges, as it is to have good colleges without good schools. 
This principle is recognized not only in the educational 
systems of the most advanced countries of Europe ; not only by 
our AYestern states, whose free state-universities are in organic 
relation with their public schools; but by many cities and towns 
in every part of our country, which have established, and are 
establishing, free high-schools, academies and colleges. Shall the 
City of Xew York, a pioneer in the field, recede ? has she become 
so illiberal, and so unwise ? 

It has been stated that too much time is given, in our college, 
to Latin and Greek. Indeed, there have not been wanting 
writers and speakers who have declaimed against the tyrannical 
enforcement of the study of the dead tongues upon all the 
students of the college. Yet, from the organization of the college 
in 1849 to this day, a free choice has been given to each student 
between the ancient and the modern languages. In all other 
respects the course of study is the same for all students; 
and all the privileges and honors of the college are equally 
accessible to all. This provision has . always been regarded as 
one of the best and distinguishing features of the college. If, 
nevertheless, a considerable number of the students choose Latin 
and Greek — whatever their reason may be, whether they deem 
a knowledge of these languages necessary for success in their 
future professions, whether they believe the study of the ancient 
a better training than that of the modern tongues, or they be 
influenced simply by traditional prejudice, by the desire to know 
something of a department of learning which, more than any 
other, has, for centuries, been a common possession of educated 
men — if, for any or all of these reasons, many students choose the 
Latin and Greek, we think it not only right to allow them their 
choice, but consider their choice a subject of congratulation. 
While it is not best that all young men should study Latin and 
Greek, it is very desirable that some should, if for no other, then 
for this reason, that our modern civilization, our literature, the 
character of our thought, the cast of our mind, result very largely 
from the civilization and literature of Athens and Rome. And we 
are not yet in a condition, if, indeed, we ever shall be, to sever 
from the earlier civilization. Says a profound and popular writer : 
"To discard altogether the learning and science of antiquity would 
2 



10 

be suicidal ; it would be like climbing up a ladder and calling to 
one's friends to saw off the lower part." Your Board may be glad 
that you are not called upon to decide, which young men shall 
study the ancient tongues, and which the modern ; but you may be 
equally glad, that, notwithstanding popular declamation in favor of 
practical studies, some young men are still found to study the 
speech and the works of classical antiquity. 

This leads us to say a few words upon the studies popularly 
called practical. We consider them of the highest importance; 
we are as proud as we are grateful, that in our college so much 
attention has always been paid to them. Its students have always 
received systematic instruction in mathematical, free-hand, and 
architectural drawing ; in physics and chemistry, and their appli- 
cations to life ; in the higher mathematics ; in surveying and en- 
gineering; in physiology and the laws of health ; in the European 
languages necessary to the merchant and the man of practical 
science; and, in what is equally important, the use of our own 
language. Some of these branches are not embraced in the course 
of study of any college but our own; and, outside of the work 
done in special and voluntary classes, few, if any, of them are taught 
to the same extent. Yet, all these subjects are, of right and 
necessity, pursued unprofessionally ; since that more special 
study which would make a department more useful to one 
student, would make it less so to another. Few young men know, 
while in college, what will be their life-business ; few show a 
marked fitness, or have a decided preference. 

A college is not chiefly valuable because it fits its alumni for the 
successful prosecution of their several vocations. The object of 
a college, especially a people's college, ought to be, in the first 
place, not to put money into the people's pockets, but knowledge 
into the people's brains. Knowledge is power, and there is no 
permanent power which is not based upon knowledge. Political 
power is based upon political knowledge. To the citizen, as such, 
knowledge of history, law, social science and general literature is 
more valuable than knowledge of physical science; logical and 
rhetorical ^ability are to him more useful than mechanical ability. 
If, therefore, the people, as a whole, desire that this country and 
every community in it shall remain truly democratic, if they 
would prevent the establishment of fixed classes, they must make 



11 

the acquisition of sncli knowledge and' ability possible for all. In 
our institution, the classical and other literary departments must 
be retained ; every proposition for devoting the college to scientific 
instruction alone, should be unconditionally rejected. * 

"We come, finally, to the suggestion of those opponents of the 
college, who would make a 'compromise with the people, and have 
those pupils of the public schools who desire a collegiate education 
instructed at some private college in the city at the public expense. 
This project must be condemned for many reasons. By adopt- 
ing the course suggested, hundreds of young men now brought 
under college influence would, obviously, never get beyond a com- 
mon school ; the public schools would suffer by the withdrawal of 
a beneficial influence, whose importance has been shown ; the plan 
of these schools would have to be materially and most inconve- 
niently altered to enable them to fit their scholars for the other 
colleges. Moreover, the city would have to relinquish the control 
of the studies of these scholars after their entrance into college ; 
and the advantages of our peculiar, more practical, and more com- 
plete course of instruction would be lost. In addition, it must be 
borne in mind that the other colleges are sectarian institutions. 
"With more or less strictness they make religious orthodoxy a 
qualification necessary for the office of academic instructor. 
The College of the City of New York alone is purely a state 
institution, and entirely unsectarian : it receives, upon terms 
of practical and legal equality, young men of all shades 
of religious belief, including those who belong to sects not 
numerous or wealthy enough to maintain colleges for themselves. 
These young men, mingling together, learn, incidentally, that in- 
telligence and worth are not distributed among men in accordance 
with ecclesiastical distinctions. Will the City of N'ew York con- 
sent to lose so beneficial, so liberalizing, so necessary an institution ? 
Will you, gentlemen, allov.^ the College of the City of ]S"ew York to 
suffer harm ? 



# 



